The crocus, in the shrewd March morn,Thrusts up its saffron spear;And April dots the sombre thornWith gems, and loveliest cheer.Then sleep the seasons, full of might;While slowly swells the pod,And rounds the peach, and in the nightThe mushroom bursts the sod.The winter falls: the frozen rutIs bound with silver bars;The white drift heaps against the hut;And night is pierced with stars.
The crocus, in the shrewd March morn,Thrusts up its saffron spear;And April dots the sombre thornWith gems, and loveliest cheer.
Then sleep the seasons, full of might;While slowly swells the pod,And rounds the peach, and in the nightThe mushroom bursts the sod.
The winter falls: the frozen rutIs bound with silver bars;The white drift heaps against the hut;And night is pierced with stars.
Where sunless rivers weepTheir waves into the deep,She sleeps a charmed sleep;Awake her not.Led by a single star,She came from very far,To seek where shadows areHer pleasant lot.She left the rosy morn,She left the fields of corn,For twilight cold and lorn,And water-springs.Thro' sleep, as thro' a veil,She sees the sky look pale,And hears the nightingale,That sadly sings.Rest, rest, a perfect rest,Shed over brow and breast;Her face is toward the west,The purple land.She cannot see the grainRipening on hill and plain;She cannot feel the rainUpon her hand.Rest, rest, for evermoreUpon a mossy shore,Rest, rest, that shall endure,Till time shall cease;—Sleep that no pain shall wake,Night that no morn shall break,Till joy shall overtakeHer perfect peace.
Where sunless rivers weepTheir waves into the deep,She sleeps a charmed sleep;Awake her not.Led by a single star,She came from very far,To seek where shadows areHer pleasant lot.
She left the rosy morn,She left the fields of corn,For twilight cold and lorn,And water-springs.Thro' sleep, as thro' a veil,She sees the sky look pale,And hears the nightingale,That sadly sings.
Rest, rest, a perfect rest,Shed over brow and breast;Her face is toward the west,The purple land.She cannot see the grainRipening on hill and plain;She cannot feel the rainUpon her hand.
Rest, rest, for evermoreUpon a mossy shore,Rest, rest, that shall endure,Till time shall cease;—Sleep that no pain shall wake,Night that no morn shall break,Till joy shall overtakeHer perfect peace.
She fell asleep on Christmas Eve.Upon her eyes' most patient calmsThe lids were shut; her uplaid armsCovered her bosom, I believe.Our mother, who had leaned all dayOver the bed from chime to chime,Then raised herself for the first time,And as she sat her down, did pray.Her little work-table was spreadWith work to finish. For the glareMade by her candle, she had careTo work some distance from the bed.Without, there was a good moon up,Which left its shadows far within;The depth of light that it was inSeemed hollow like an altar-cup.Through the small room, with subtle soundOf flame, by vents the fireshine droveAnd reddened. In its dim alcoveThe mirror shed a clearness round.I had been sitting up some nights,And my tir'd mind felt weak and blank;Like a sharp strengthening wine, it drankThe stillness and the broken lights.Silence was speaking at my sideWith an exceedingly clear voice:I knew the calm as of a choiceMade in God for me, to abide.I said, “Full knowledge does not grieve:This which upon my spirit dwellsPerhaps would have been sorrow else:But I am glad 'tis Christmas Eve.”Twelve struck. That sound, which all the yearsHear in each hour, crept off; and thenThe ruffled silence spread again,Like water that a pebble stirs.Our mother rose from where she sat.Her needles, as she laid them down,Met lightly, and her silken gownSettled: no other noise than that.“Glory unto the Newly Born!”So, as said angels, she did say;Because we were in Christmas-day,Though it would still be long till dawn.She stood a moment with her handsKept in each other, praying much;A moment that the soul may touchBut the heart only understands.Almost unwittingly, my mindRepeated her words after her;Perhaps tho' my lips did not stir;It was scarce thought, or cause assign'd.Just then in the room over usThere was a pushing back of chairs,As some who had sat unawaresSo late, now heard the hour, and rose.Anxious, with softly stepping haste,Our mother went where Margaret lay,Fearing the sounds o'erhead—should theyHave broken her long-watched for rest!She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;But suddenly turned back again;And all her features seemed in painWith woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.For my part, I but hid my face,And held my breath, and spake no word:There was none spoken; butI heardThe silencefor a little space.My mother bowed herself and wept.And both my arms fell, and I said:“God knows I knew that she was dead.”And there, all white, my sister slept.Then kneeling, upon Christmas mornA little after twelve o'clockWe said, ere the first quarter struck,“Christ's blessing on the newly born!”
She fell asleep on Christmas Eve.Upon her eyes' most patient calmsThe lids were shut; her uplaid armsCovered her bosom, I believe.
Our mother, who had leaned all dayOver the bed from chime to chime,Then raised herself for the first time,And as she sat her down, did pray.
Her little work-table was spreadWith work to finish. For the glareMade by her candle, she had careTo work some distance from the bed.
Without, there was a good moon up,Which left its shadows far within;The depth of light that it was inSeemed hollow like an altar-cup.
Through the small room, with subtle soundOf flame, by vents the fireshine droveAnd reddened. In its dim alcoveThe mirror shed a clearness round.
I had been sitting up some nights,And my tir'd mind felt weak and blank;Like a sharp strengthening wine, it drankThe stillness and the broken lights.
Silence was speaking at my sideWith an exceedingly clear voice:I knew the calm as of a choiceMade in God for me, to abide.
I said, “Full knowledge does not grieve:This which upon my spirit dwellsPerhaps would have been sorrow else:But I am glad 'tis Christmas Eve.”
Twelve struck. That sound, which all the yearsHear in each hour, crept off; and thenThe ruffled silence spread again,Like water that a pebble stirs.
Our mother rose from where she sat.Her needles, as she laid them down,Met lightly, and her silken gownSettled: no other noise than that.
“Glory unto the Newly Born!”So, as said angels, she did say;Because we were in Christmas-day,Though it would still be long till dawn.
She stood a moment with her handsKept in each other, praying much;A moment that the soul may touchBut the heart only understands.
Almost unwittingly, my mindRepeated her words after her;Perhaps tho' my lips did not stir;It was scarce thought, or cause assign'd.
Just then in the room over usThere was a pushing back of chairs,As some who had sat unawaresSo late, now heard the hour, and rose.
Anxious, with softly stepping haste,Our mother went where Margaret lay,Fearing the sounds o'erhead—should theyHave broken her long-watched for rest!
She stooped an instant, calm, and turned;But suddenly turned back again;And all her features seemed in painWith woe, and her eyes gazed and yearned.
For my part, I but hid my face,And held my breath, and spake no word:There was none spoken; butI heardThe silencefor a little space.
My mother bowed herself and wept.And both my arms fell, and I said:“God knows I knew that she was dead.”And there, all white, my sister slept.
Then kneeling, upon Christmas mornA little after twelve o'clockWe said, ere the first quarter struck,“Christ's blessing on the newly born!”
“Rivolsimi in quel latoLà 'nde venia la voce,E parvemi una luceChe lucea quanto stella:La mia mente era quella.”Bonaggiunta Urbiciani, (1250.)
“Rivolsimi in quel latoLà 'nde venia la voce,E parvemi una luceChe lucea quanto stella:La mia mente era quella.”
Bonaggiunta Urbiciani, (1250.)
Before any knowledge of painting was brought to Florence, there were already painters in Lucca, and Pisa, and Arezzo, who feared God and loved the art. The keen, grave workmen from Greece, whose trade it was to sell their own works in Italy and teach Italians to imitate them, had already found rivals of the soil with skill that could forestall their lessons and cheapen their crucifixes andaddolorate, more years than is supposed before the art came at all into Florence. The pre-eminence to which Cimabue was raised at once by his contemporaries, and which he still retains to a wide extent even in the modern mind, is to be accounted for, partly by the circumstances under which he arose, and partly by that extraordinarypurpose of fortuneborn with the lives of some few, and through which it is not a little thing for any who went before, if they are even remembered as the shadows of the coming of such an one, and the voices which prepared his way in the wilderness. It is thus, almost exclusively, that the painters of whom I speak are now known. They have left little, and but little heed is taken of that which men hold to have been surpassed; it is gone like time gone—a track of dust and dead leaves that merely led to the fountain.
Nevertheless, of very late years, and in very rare instances, some signs of a better understanding have become manifest. A case in point is that of the tryptic and two cruciform pictures at Dresden, by Chiaro di Messer Bello dell' Erma, to which the eloquent pamphlet of Dr. Aemmster has at length succeeded in attracting the students. There is another, still more solemn and beautiful work, now proved to be by the same hand, in the gallery at Florence. It is the one to which my narrative will relate.
This Chiaro dell' Erma was a young man of very honorable family in Arezzo; where, conceiving art almost, as it were, for himself, and loving it deeply, he endeavored from early boyhood towards the imitation of any objects offered in nature. The extreme longing after a visible embodiment of his thoughts strengthened as his years increased, more even than his sinews or the blood of his life; untilhe would feel faint in sunsets and at the sight of stately persons. When he had lived nineteen years, he heard of the famous Giunta Pisano; and, feeling much of admiration, with, perhaps, a little of that envy which youth always feels until it has learned to measure success by time and opportunity, he determined that he would seek out Giunta, and, if possible, become his pupil.
Having arrived in Pisa, he clothed himself in humble apparel, being unwilling that any other thing than the desire he had for knowledge should be his plea with the great painter; and then, leaving his baggage at a house of entertainment, he took his way along the street, asking whom he met for the lodging of Giunta. It soon chanced that one of that city, conceiving him to be a stranger and poor, took him into his house, and refreshed him; afterwards directing him on his way.
When he was brought to speech of Giunta, he said merely that he was a student, and that nothing in the world was so much at his heart as to become that which he had heard told of him with whom he was speaking. He was received with courtesy and consideration, and shewn into the study of the famous artist. But the forms he saw there were lifeless and incomplete; and a sudden exultation possessed him as he said within himself, “I am the master of this man.” The blood came at first into his face, but the next moment he was quite pale and fell to trembling. He was able, however, to conceal his emotion; speaking very little to Giunta, but, when he took his leave, thanking him respectfully.
After this, Chiaro's first resolve was, that he would work out thoroughly some one of his thoughts, and let the world know him. But the lesson which he had now learned, of how small a greatness might win fame, and how little there was to strive against, served to make him torpid, and rendered his exertions less continual. Also Pisa was a larger and more luxurious city than Arezzo; and, when in his walks, he saw the great gardens laid out for pleasure, and the beautiful women who passed to and fro, and heard the music that was in the groves of the city at evening, he was taken with wonder that he had never claimed his share of the inheritance of those years in which his youth was cast. And women loved Chiaro; for, in despite of the burthen of study, he was well-favoured and very manly in his walking; and, seeing his face in front, there was a glory upon it, as upon the face of one who feels a light round his hair.
So he put thought from him, and partook of his life. But, one night, being in a certain company of ladies, a gentleman that was there with him began to speak of the paintings of a youth namedBonaventura, which he had seen in Lucca; adding that Giunta Pisano might now look for a rival. When Chiaro heard this, the lamps shook before him, and the music beat in his ears and made him giddy. He rose up, alleging a sudden sickness, and went out of that house with his teeth set.
He now took to work diligently; not returning to Arezzo, but remaining in Pisa, that no day more might be lost; only living entirely to himself. Sometimes, after nightfall, he would walk abroad in the most solitary places he could find; hardly feeling the ground under him, because of the thoughts of the day which held him in fever.
The lodging he had chosen was in a house that looked upon gardens fast by the Church of San Rocco. During the offices, as he sat at work, he could hear the music of the organ and the long murmur that the chanting left; and if his window were open, sometimes, at those parts of the mass where there is silence throughout the church, his ear caught faintly the single voice of the priest. Beside the matters of his art and a very few books, almost the only object to be noticed in Chiaro's room was a small consecrated image of St. Mary Virgin wrought out of silver, before which stood always, in summer-time, a glass containing a lily and a rose.
It was here, and at this time, that Chiaro painted the Dresden pictures; as also, in all likelihood, the one—inferior in merit, but certainly his—which is now at Munich. For the most part, he was calm and regular in his manner of study; though often he would remain at work through the whole of the day, not resting once so long as the light lasted; flushed, and with the hair from his face. Or, at times, when he could not paint, he would sit for hours in thought of all the greatness the world had known from of old; until he was weak with yearning, like one who gazes upon a path of stars.
He continued in this patient endeavour for about three years, at the end of which his name was spoken throughout all Tuscany. As his fame waxed, he began to be employed, besides easel-pictures, upon paintings in fresco: but I believe that no traces remain to us of any of these latter. He is said to have painted in the Duomo: and D'Agincourt mentions having seen some portions of a fresco by him which originally had its place above the high altar in the Church of the Certosa; but which, at the time he saw it, being very dilapidated, had been hewn out of the wall, and was preserved in the stores of the convent. Before the period of Dr. Aemmster's researches, however, it had been entirely destroyed.
Chiaro was now famous. It was for the race of fame that he hadgirded up his loins; and he had not paused until fame was reached: yet now, in taking breath, he found that the weight was still at his heart. The years of his labor had fallen from him, and his life was still in its first painful desire.
With all that Chiaro had done during these three years, and even before, with the studies of his early youth, there had always been a feeling of worship and service. It was the peace-offering that he made to God and to his own soul for the eager selfishness of his aim. There was earth, indeed, upon the hem of his raiment; butthiswas of the heaven, heavenly. He had seasons when he could endure to think of no other feature of his hope than this: and sometimes, in the ecstacy of prayer, it had even seemed to him to behold that day when his mistress—his mystical lady (now hardly in her ninth year, but whose solemn smile at meeting had already lighted on his soul like the dove of the Trinity)—even she, his own gracious and holy Italian art—with her virginal bosom, and her unfathomable eyes, and the thread of sunlight round her brows—should pass, through the sun that never sets, into the circle of the shadow of the tree of life, and be seen of God, and found good: and then it had seemed to him, that he, with many who, since his coming, had joined the band of whom he was one (for, in his dream, the body he had worn on earth had been dead an hundred years), were permitted to gather round the blessed maiden, and to worship with her through all ages and ages of ages, saying, Holy, holy, holy. This thing he had seen with the eyes of his spirit; and in this thing had trusted, believing that it would surely come to pass.
But now, (being at length led to enquire closely into himself,) even as, in the pursuit of fame, the unrest abiding after attainment had proved to him that he had misinterpreted the craving of his own spirit—so also, now that he would willingly have fallen back on devotion, he became aware that much of that reverence which he had mistaken for faith had been no more than the worship of beauty. Therefore, after certain days passed in perplexity, Chiaro said within himself, “My life and my will are yet before me: I will take another aim to my life.”
From that moment Chiaro set a watch on his soul, and put his hand to no other works but only to such as had for their end the presentment of some moral greatness that should impress the beholder: and, in doing this, he did not choose for his medium the action and passion of human life, but cold symbolism and abstract impersonation. So the people ceased to throng about his pictures as heretofore; and, when they were carried through town and town to their destination, they were no longer delayed by the crowdseager to gaze and admire: and no prayers or offerings were brought to them on their path, as to his Madonnas, and his Saints, and his Holy Children. Only the critical audience remained to him; and these, in default of more worthy matter, would have turned their scrutiny on a puppet or a mantle. Meanwhile, he had no more of fever upon him; but was calm and pale each day in all that he did and in his goings in and out. The works he produced at this time have perished—in all likelihood, not unjustly. It is said (and we may easily believe it), that, though more labored than his former pictures, they were cold and unemphatic; bearing marked out upon them, as they must certainly have done, the measure of that boundary to which they were made to conform.
And the weight was still close at Chiaro's heart: but he held in his breath, never resting (for he was afraid), and would not know it.
Now it happened, within these days, that there fell a great feast in Pisa, for holy matters: and each man left his occupation; and all the guilds and companies of the city were got together for games and rejoicings. And there were scarcely any that stayed in the houses, except ladies who lay or sat along their balconies between open windows which let the breeze beat through the rooms and over the spread tables from end to end. And the golden cloths that their arms lay upon drew all eyes upward to see their beauty; and the day was long; and every hour of the day was bright with the sun.
So Chiaro's model, when he awoke that morning on the hot pavement of the Piazza Nunziata, and saw the hurry of people that passed him, got up and went along with them; and Chiaro waited for him in vain.
For the whole of that morning, the music was in Chiaro's room from the Church close at hand: and he could hear the sounds that the crowd made in the streets; hushed only at long intervals while the processions for the feast-day chanted in going under his windows. Also, more than once, there was a high clamour from the meeting of factious persons: for the ladies of both leagues were looking down; and he who encountered his enemy could not choose but draw upon him. Chiaro waited a long time idle; and then knew that his model was gone elsewhere. When at his work, he was blind and deaf to all else; but he feared sloth: for then his stealthy thoughts would begin, as it were, to beat round and round him, seeking a point for attack. He now rose, therefore, and went to the window. It was within a short space of noon; and underneath him a throng of people was coming out through the porch of San Rocco.
The two greatest houses of the feud in Pisa had filled the church for that mass. The first to leave had been the Gherghiotti; who, stopping on the threshold, had fallen back in ranks along each side of the archway: so that now, in passing outward, the Marotoli had to walk between two files of men whom they hated, and whose fathers had hated theirs. All the chiefs were there and their whole adherence; and each knew the name of each. Every man of the Marotoli, as he came forth and saw his foes, laid back his hood and gazed about him, to show the badge upon the close cap that held his hair. And of the Gherghiotti there were some who tightened their girdles; and some shrilled and threw up their wrists scornfully, as who flies a falcon; for that was the crest of their house.
On the walls within the entry were a number of tall, narrow frescoes, presenting a moral allegory of Peace, which Chiaro had painted that year for the Church. The Gherghiotti stood with their backs to these frescoes: and among them Golzo Ninuccio, the youngest noble of the faction, called by the people of Golaghiotta, for his debased life. This youth had remained for some while talking listlessly to his fellows, though with his sleepy sunken eyes fixed on them who passed: but now, seeing that no man jostled another, he drew the long silver shoe off his foot, and struck the dust out of it on the cloak of him who was going by, asking him how far the tides rose at Viderza. And he said so because it was three months since, at that place, the Gherghiotti had beaten the Marotoli to the sands, and held them there while the sea came in; whereby many had been drowned. And, when he had spoken, at once the whole archway was dazzling with the light of confused swords; and they who had left turned back; and they who were still behind made haste to come forth: and there was so much blood cast up the walls on a sudden, that it ran in long streams down Chiaro's paintings.
Chiaro turned himself from the window; for the light felt dry between his lids, and he could not look. He sat down, and heard the noise of contention driven out of the church-porch and a great way through the streets; and soon there was a deep murmur that heaved and waxed from the other side of the city, where those of both parties were gathering to join in the tumult.
Chiaro sat with his face in his open hands. Once again he had wished to set his foot on a place that looked green and fertile; and once again it seemed to him that the thin rank mask was about to spread away, and that this time the chill of the water must leave leprosy in his flesh. The light still swam in his head, and bewilderedhim at first; but when he knew his thoughts, they were these:—
“Fame failed me: faith failed me: and now this also,—the hope that I nourished in this my generation of men,—shall pass from me, and leave my feet and my hands groping. Yet, because of this, are my feet become slow and my hands thin. I am as one who, through the whole night, holding his way diligently, hath smitten the steel unto the flint, to lead some whom he knew darkling; who hath kept his eyes always on the sparks that himself made, lest they should fail; and who, towards dawn, turning to bid them that he had guided God speed, sees the wet grass untrodden except of his own feet. I am as the last hour of the day, whose chimes are a perfect number; whom the next followeth not, nor light ensueth from him; but in the same darkness is the old order begun afresh. Men say, ‘This is not God nor man; he is not as we are, neither above us: let him sit beneath us, for we are many.’ Where I write Peace, in that spot is the drawing of swords, and there men's footprints are red. When I would sow, another harvest is ripe. Nay, it is much worse with me than thus much. Am I not as a cloth drawn before the light, that the looker may not be blinded; but which sheweth thereby the grain of its own coarseness; so that the light seems defiled, and men say, ‘We will not walk by it.’ Wherefore through me they shall be doubly accursed, seeing that through me they reject the light. May one be a devil and not know it?”
As Chiaro was in these thoughts, the fever encroached slowly on his veins, till he could sit no longer, and would have risen; but suddenly he found awe within him, and held his head bowed, without stirring. The warmth of the air was not shaken; but there seemed a pulse in the light, and a living freshness, like rain. The silence was a painful music, that made the blood ache in his temples; and he lifted his face and his deep eyes.
A woman was present in his room, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment, fashioned to that time. It seemed that the first thoughts he had ever known were given him as at first from her eyes, and he knew her hair to be the golden veil through which he beheld his dreams. Though her hands were joined, her face was not lifted, but set forward; and though the gaze was austere, yet her mouth was supreme in gentleness. And as he looked, Chiaro's spirit appeared abashed of its own intimate presence, and his lips shook with the thrill of tears; it seemed such a bitter while till the spirit might be indeed alone.
She did not move closer towards him, but he felt her to be as much with him as his breath. He was like one who, scaling agreat steepness, hears his own voice echoed in some place much higher than he can see, and the name of which is not known to him. As the woman stood, her speech was with Chiaro: not, as it were, from her mouth or in his ears; but distinctly between them.
“I am an image, Chiaro, of thine own soul within thee. See me, and know me as I am. Thou sayest that fame has failed thee, and faith failed thee; but because at least thou hast not laid thy life unto riches, therefore, though thus late, I am suffered to come into thy knowledge. Fame sufficed not, for that thou didst seek fame: seek thine own conscience (not thy mind's conscience, but thine heart's), and all shall approve and suffice. For Fame, in noble soils, is a fruit of the Spring: but not therefore should it be said: ‘Lo! my garden that I planted is barren: the crocus is here, but the lily is dead in the dry ground, and shall not lift the earth that covers it: therefore I will fling my garden together, and give it unto the builders.’ Take heed rather that thou trouble not the wise secret earth; for in the mould that thou throwest up shall the first tender growth lie to waste; which else had been made strong in its season. Yea, and even if the year fall past in all its months, and the soil be indeed, to thee, peevish and incapable, and though thou indeed gather all thy harvest, and it suffice for others, and thou remain vext with emptiness; and others drink of thy streams, and the drouth rasp thy throat;—let it be enough that these have found the feast good, and thanked the giver: remembering that, when the winter is striven through, there is another year, whose wind is meek, and whose sun fulfilleth all.”
While he heard, Chiaro went slowly on his knees. It was not to her that spoke, for the speech seemed within him and his own. The air brooded in sunshine, and though the turmoil was great outside, the air within was at peace. But when he looked in her eyes, he wept. And she came to him, and cast her hair over him, and, took her hands about his forehead, and spoke again:
“Thou hadst said,” she continued, gently, “that faith failed thee. This cannot be so. Either thou hadst it not, or thou hast it. But who bade thee strike the point betwixt love and faith? Wouldst thou sift the warm breeze from the sun that quickens it? Who bade thee turn upon God and say: “Behold, my offering is of earth, and not worthy: thy fire comes not upon it: therefore, though I slay not my brother whom thou acceptest, I will depart before thou smite me.” Why shouldst thou rise up and tell God He is not content? Had He, of His warrant, certified so to thee? Be not nice to seek out division; but possess thy love in sufficiency: assuredly this is faith, for the heart must believe first. What He hath set in thine heart to do, that do thou; and even though thou do itwithout thought of Him, it shall be well done: it is this sacrifice that He asketh of thee, and His flame is upon it for a sign. Think not of Him; but of His love and thy love. For God is no morbid exactor: he hath no hand to bow beneath, nor a foot, that thou shouldst kiss it.”
And Chiaro held silence, and wept into her hair which covered his face; and the salt tears that he shed ran through her hair upon his lips; and he tasted the bitterness of shame.
Then the fair woman, that was his soul, spoke again to him, saying:
“And for this thy last purpose, and for those unprofitable truths of thy teaching,—thine heart hath already put them away, and it needs not that I lay my bidding upon thee. How is it that thou, a man, wouldst say coldly to the mind what God hath said to the heart warmly? Thy will was honest and wholesome; but look well lest this also be folly,—to say, ‘I, in doing this, do strengthen God among men.’ When at any time hath he cried unto thee, saying, ‘My son, lend me thy shoulder, for I fall?’ Deemest thou that the men who enter God's temple in malice, to the provoking of blood, and neither for his love nor for his wrath will abate their purpose,—shall afterwards stand with thee in the porch, midway between Him and themselves, to give ear unto thy thin voice, which merely the fall of their visors can drown, and to see thy hands, stretched feebly, tremble among their swords? Give thou to God no more than he asketh of thee; but to man also, that which is man's. In all that thou doest, work from thine own heart, simply; for his heart is as thine, when thine is wise and humble; and he shall have understanding of thee. One drop of rain is as another, and the sun's prism in all: and shalt not thou be as he, whose lives are the breath of One? Only by making thyself his equal can he learn to hold communion with thee, and at last own thee above him. Not till thou lean over the water shalt thou see thine image therein: stand erect, and it shall slope from thy feet and be lost. Know that there is but this means whereby thou may'st serve God with man:—Set thine hand and thy soul to serve man with God.”
And when she that spoke had said these words within Chiaro's spirit, she left his side quietly, and stood up as he had first seen her; with her fingers laid together, and her eyes steadfast, and with the breadth of her long dress covering her feet on the floor. And, speaking again, she said:
“Chiaro, servant of God, take now thine Art unto thee, and paint me thus, as I am, to know me: weak, as I am, and in the weeds of this time; only with eyes which seek out labour, and with a faith, not learned, yet jealous of prayer. Do this; so shall thy soul stand before thee always, and perplex thee no more.”
And Chiaro did as she bade him. While he worked, his face grew solemn with knowledge: and before the shadows had turned, his work was done. Having finished, he lay back where he sat, and was asleep immediately: for the growth of that strong sunset was heavy about him, and he felt weak and haggard; like one just come out of a dusk, hollow country, bewildered with echoes, where he had lost himself, and who has not slept for many days and nights. And when she saw him lie back, the beautiful woman came to him, and sat at his head, gazing, and quieted his sleep with her voice.
The tumult of the factions had endured all that day through all Pisa, though Chiaro had not heard it: and the last service of that Feast was a mass sung at midnight from the windows of all the churches for the many dead who lay about the city, and who had to be buried before morning, because of the extreme heats.
In the Spring of 1847 I was at Florence. Such as were there at the same time with myself—those, at least, to whom Art is something,—will certainly recollect how many rooms of the Pitti Gallery were closed through that season, in order that some of the pictures they contained might be examined, and repaired without the necessity of removal. The hall, the staircases, and the vast central suite of apartments, were the only accessible portions; and in these such paintings as they could admit from the sealedpenetraliawere profanely huddled together, without respect of dates, schools, or persons.
I fear that, through this interdict, I may have missed seeing many of the best pictures. I do not meanonlythe most talked of: for these, as they were restored, generally found their way somehow into the open rooms, owing to the clamours raised by the students; and I remember how old Ercoli's, the curator's, spectacles used to be mirrored in the reclaimed surface, as he leaned mysteriously over these works with some of the visitors, to scrutinize and elucidate.
One picture, that I saw that Spring, I shall not easily forget. It was among those, I believe, brought from the other rooms, and had been hung, obviously out of all chronology, immediately beneath that head by Raphael so long known as the “Berrettino,” and now said to be the portrait of Cecco Ciulli.
The picture I speak of is a small one, and represents merely the figure of a woman, clad to the hands and feet with a green and grey raiment, chaste and early in its fashion, but exceedingly simple. She is standing: her hands are held together lightly, and her eyes set earnestly open.
The face and hands in this picture, though wrought with great delicacy, have the appearance of being painted at once, in a single sitting: the drapery is unfinished. As soon as I saw the figure, it drew an awe upon me, like water in shadow. I shall not attempt to describe it more than I have already done; for the most absorbing wonder of it was its literality. You knew that figure, when painted, had been seen; yet it was not a thing to be seen of men. This language will appear ridiculous to such as have never looked on the work; and it may be even to some among those who have. On examining it closely, I perceived in one corner of the canvass the wordsManus Animam pinxit, and the date 1239.
I turned to my Catalogue, but that was useless, for the pictures were all displaced. I then stepped up to the Cavaliere Ercoli, who was in the room at the moment, and asked him regarding thesubject of authorship of the painting. He treated the matter, I thought, somewhat slightingly, and said that he could show me the reference in the Catalogue, which he had compiled. This, when found, was not of much value, as it merely said, “Schizzo d'autore incerto,” adding the inscription.{4} I could willingly have prolonged my inquiry, in the hope that it might somehow lead to some result; but I had disturbed the curator from certain yards of Guido, and he was not communicative. I went back therefore, and stood before the picture till it grew dusk.
{4}I should here say, that in the catalogue for the year just over, (owing, as in cases before mentioned, to the zeal and enthusiasm of Dr. Aemmester) this, and several other pictures, have been more competently entered. The work in question is now placed in theSala Sessagona, a room I did not see—under the number 161. It is described as “Figura mistica di Chiaro dell' Erma,” and there is a brief notice of the author appended.
{4}I should here say, that in the catalogue for the year just over, (owing, as in cases before mentioned, to the zeal and enthusiasm of Dr. Aemmester) this, and several other pictures, have been more competently entered. The work in question is now placed in theSala Sessagona, a room I did not see—under the number 161. It is described as “Figura mistica di Chiaro dell' Erma,” and there is a brief notice of the author appended.
The next day I was there again; but this time a circle of students was round the spot, all copying the “Berrettino.” I contrived, however, to find a place whence I could seemypicture, and where I seemed to be in nobody's way. For some minutes I remained undisturbed; and then I heard, in an English voice: “Might I beg of you, sir, to stand a little more to this side, as you interrupt my view.”
I felt vext, for, standing where he asked me, a glare struck on the picture from the windows, and I could not see it. However, the request was reasonably made, and from a countryman; so I complied, and turning away, stood by his easel. I knew it was not worth while; yet I referred in some way to the work underneath the one he was copying. He did not laugh, but he smiled as we do in England: “Veryodd, is it not?” said he.
The other students near us were all continental; and seeing an Englishman select an Englishman to speak with, conceived, I suppose, that he could understand no language but his own. They had evidently been noticing the interest which the little picture appeared to excite in me.
One of them, and Italian, said something to another who stood next to him. He spoke with a Genoese accent, and I lost the sense in the villainous dialect. “Che so?” replied the other, lifting his eyebrows towards the figure; “roba mistica: 'st' Inglesi son matti sul misticismo: somiglia alle nebbie di là. Li fa pensare alla patria,
“E intenerisce il coreLo dì ch' han detto ai dolci amici adio.”
“La notte, vuoi dire,” said a third.
There was a general laugh. My compatriot was evidently a novice in the language, and did not take in what was said. I remained silent, being amused.
“Et toi donc?” said he who had quoted Dante, turning to a student, whose birthplace was unmistakable even had he been addressed in any other language: “que dis-tu de ce genre-là?”
“Moi?” returned the Frenchman, standing back from his easel, and looking at me and at the figure, quite politely, though with an evident reservation: “Je dis, mon cher, que c'est une spécialité dont je me fiche pas mal. Je tiens que quand on ne comprend pas une chose, c'est qu' elle ne signifie rein.”
My reader thinks possibly that the French student was right.
The critic who should undertake to speak of all the poetry which issues from the press of these present days, what is so called by courtesy as well as that which may claim the title as of right, would impose on himself a task demanding no little labor, and entailing no little disgust and weariness. Nor is the trouble well repaid. More profit will not accrue to him who studies, if the word can be used, fifty of a certain class of versifiers, than to him who glances over one: and, while a successful effort to warn such that poetry is not their proper sphere, and that they must seek elsewhere for a vocation to work out, might embolden a philanthropist to assume the position of scare-crow, and drive away the unclean birds from the flowers and the green leaves; on the other hand, the small results which appear to have hitherto attended such endeavors are calculated rather to induce those who have yet made, to relinquish them than to lead others to follow in the same track. It is truly a disheartening task. To the critic himself no good, though some amusement occasionally, can be expected: to the criticised, good but rarely, for he is seldom convinced, and annoyance and rancour almost of course; and, even in those few cases where the voice crying “in the wilderness” produces its effect, the one thistle that abandons the attempt at bearing figs sees its neighbors still believing in their success, and soon has its own place filled up. The sentence of those who do not read is the best criticism on those who will not think.
It is acting on these considerations that we propose not to take count of any works that do not either show a purpose achieved or give promise of a worthy event; while of such we hope to overlook none.
We believe it may safely be assumed that at no previous period has the public been more buzzed round by triviality and common-place; but we hold firm, at the same time, that at none other has there been a greater or a grander body of genius, or so honorable a display of well cultivated taste and talent. Certainly the public do not seem to know this: certainly the critics deny it, or rather speak as though they never contemplated that such a position would be advanced: but, if the fact be so, it will make itself known, and the poets of this day will assert themselves, and take their places.
Of these it is our desire to speak truthfully, indeed, and without compromise, but always as bearing in mind that the inventor is more than the commentator, and the book more than the notes; and that, if it is we who speak, we do so not for ourselves, nor as of ourselves.
The work of Arthur Hugh Clough now before us, (we feel warranted in the dropping of theMr.even at his first work,) unites the most enduring forms of nature, and the most unsophisticated conditions of life and character, with the technicalities of speech, of manners, and of persons of an Oxford reading party in the long vacation. His hero is
“Philip Hewson, the poet,Hewson, the radical hot, hating lords and scorning ladies;”
and his heroine is no heroine, but a woman, “Elspie, the quiet, the brave.”
The metre he has chosen, the hexametral, harmonises with the spirit of primitive simplicity in which the poem is conceived; is itself a background, as much as are “Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan;” and gives a new individuality to the passages of familiar narrative and every day conversation. It has an intrinsic appropriateness; although, at first thought of the subject, this will, perhaps, be scarcely admitted of so old and so stately a rhythmical form.
As regards execution, however, there may be noted, in qualification of much pliancy and vigour, a certain air of experiment in occasional passages, and a license in versification, which more than warrants a warning “to expect every kind of irregularity in these modern hexameters.” The following lines defy all efforts at reading in dactyls or spondees, and require an almost complete transposition of accent.
“There was a point which I forgot, which our gallant Highland homes have;”—“While the little drunken Piper came across to shake hands with Lindsay:”—“Something of the world, of men and women: you will not refuse me.”
In the first of these lines, the omission of the former “which,” would remove all objection; and there are others where a final syllable appears clearly deficient; as thus:—
“Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead between” [them]:—“Always welcome the stranger: I may say, delighted to see [such] Fine young men:”—“Nay, never talk: listen now. What I say you can't apprehend” [yet]:—“Laid her hand on her lap. Philip took it. She did not resist” [him]:—
Yet the following would be scarcely improved by greater exactness:
“Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God;”
Nor, perhaps, ought this to be made correct:
“Close as the bodies and intertwining limbs of athletic wrestlers.”
The aspect offactpervading “the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich,”—(in English, “the hut of the bearded well,” a somewhat singular title, to say the least,) is so strong and complete as to render necessary the few words of dedication, where, in inscribing the poem, (or, as the author terms it, “trifle,”) to his “long-vacation pupils,” he expresses a hope, that they “will not be displeased if, in a fiction, purely fiction, they are here and there reminded of times enjoyed together.”
As the story opens, the Oxford party are about to proceed to dinner at “the place of the Clansmen's meeting.” Their characters, discriminated with the nicest taste, and perfectly worked out, are thus introduced:
“Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing.Hope was the first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, his Honor;For the postman made out he was a son to the Earl of Ilay,(As, indeed, he was to the younger brother, the Colonel);Treated him therefore with special respect, doffed bonnet, and everCalled him his Honor: his Honor he therefore was at the cottage;Always his Honor at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay.“Hope was the first, his Honor; and, next to his Honor, the Tutor.Still more plain the tutor, the grave man nicknamed Adam,White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat,Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it;Skilful in ethics and logic, in Pindar and poets unrivalled;Shadyin Latin, said Lindsay, buttoppingin plays and Aldrich.“Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat of a lady,Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay,Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician:This was his title from Adam, because of the words he invented,Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party.“Hewson and Hobbes were down at thematutinebathing; of courseArthur Audley, the batherpar excellenceglory of headers:Arthur they called him for love and for euphony: so were they bathingThere where in mornings was custom, where, over a ledge of granite,Into a granite bason descended the amber torrent.There were they bathing and dressing: it was but a step from the cottage,Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead between.Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed Arthur.“Airlie descended the last, splendescent as god of Olympus.When for ten minutes already the fourwheel had stood at the gateway;He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber.”—pp. 5, 6.
“Be it recorded in song who was first, who last, in dressing.Hope was the first, black-tied, white-waistcoated, simple, his Honor;For the postman made out he was a son to the Earl of Ilay,(As, indeed, he was to the younger brother, the Colonel);Treated him therefore with special respect, doffed bonnet, and everCalled him his Honor: his Honor he therefore was at the cottage;Always his Honor at least, sometimes the Viscount of Ilay.
“Hope was the first, his Honor; and, next to his Honor, the Tutor.Still more plain the tutor, the grave man nicknamed Adam,White-tied, clerical, silent, with antique square-cut waistcoat,Formal, unchanged, of black cloth, but with sense and feeling beneath it;Skilful in ethics and logic, in Pindar and poets unrivalled;Shadyin Latin, said Lindsay, buttoppingin plays and Aldrich.
“Somewhat more splendid in dress, in a waistcoat of a lady,Lindsay succeeded, the lively, the cheery, cigar-loving Lindsay,Lindsay the ready of speech, the Piper, the Dialectician:This was his title from Adam, because of the words he invented,Who in three weeks had created a dialect new for the party.
“Hewson and Hobbes were down at thematutinebathing; of courseArthur Audley, the batherpar excellenceglory of headers:Arthur they called him for love and for euphony: so were they bathingThere where in mornings was custom, where, over a ledge of granite,Into a granite bason descended the amber torrent.There were they bathing and dressing: it was but a step from the cottage,Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead between.Hewson and Hobbes followed quick upon Adam; on them followed Arthur.
“Airlie descended the last, splendescent as god of Olympus.When for ten minutes already the fourwheel had stood at the gateway;He, like a god, came leaving his ample Olympian chamber.”—pp. 5, 6.
A peculiar point of style in this poem, and one which gives a certain classic character to some of its more familiar aspects, is the frequent recurrence of the same line, and the repeated definition of a personageby the same attributes. Thus, Lindsay is “the Piper, the Dialectician,” Arthur Audley “the glory of headers,” and the tutor “the grave man nicknamed Adam,” from beginning to end; and so also of the others.
Omitting the after-dinner speeches, with their “Long constructions strange and plusquam-Thucydidean,” that only of “Sir Hector, the Chief and the Chairman;” in honor of the Oxonians, than which nothing could be more unpoetically truthful, is preserved, with the acknowledgment, ending in a sarcasm at the game laws, by Hewson, who, as he is leaving the room, is accosted by “a thin man, clad as the Saxon:”